This is what I told the President of France
Mr. President, you have invited the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, at the ceremony of 70th anniversary of landing union troops in Normandy.
Whom will represent the President Putin? The Russian people or all the peoples of the former USSR? It was clear when France invited Putin to the 60th anniversary celebration. Then there was still some internal agreement in the CIS, where Russia usually presides. But today we are witnessing the Russian aggression against Georgia, Ukraine, threats against other former "fraternal republics."
Mr. President, official statistics shows that on the eve of World War II, the number of Russians in the Soviet Union was about 99 million, and other nations totaled more than 70 million; but in recent years we have seen that the Russians more and more privatize a victory, as contribution of other peoples to it. They even stopped showing Soviet films, representing the victory as an exclusive Russian conquest. Was Stalin the Russian? And majority in the leadership of the USSR and the army was non-Russians.
One must clearly understand that the Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians , Kazakhs and other peoples shed blood on the Russian, and not on their own land. It can be asked what would happen to other areas if they were captured by the Germans. History has no subjunctive mood. It is a fact that millions of other nationalities were killed in the vast Russian areas and other countries. And they have a right to be represented today in Normandy.
I'd really like Putin to look into the eyes of each president of former Soviet republics, and in particular , the President of Ukraine, after the offense in this country. I would like that the Russians see and realized that those whom they are now trying to humiliate, represent the peoples who sacrificed the lives of their soldiers in this war.
P.S. This is the appeal of Mehman Aliyev, the Director of Turan Information Agency, to the President of France, Francois Hollande, on May 12 during a meeting in Baku with representatives of civil society in Azerbaijan.
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